


Alibastor

by dinoburger



Category: LISA (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Mutants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 11:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20891486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinoburger/pseuds/dinoburger
Summary: A fish-eye lens on the apocalypse from our favourite lawyer.I guess you might call this a character study...





	Alibastor

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to make up for that other thing, I think Harvey's a pretty interesting character...

It was a joke, the years of rigorous studying he’d been put through, only to be dumped into the lawless wastes of the apocalypse.

His parents and those in their company were behind him. They were clean people, collected and clinical people, so far from those of the world he’d been left in. 

Dirty, rough and senseless, the apocalypse made animals of men and men of animals. Harvey was a testament to that. 

And so he’d reclused himself, with the other fishmen. So began the crude mimicry of what humanity once was. Babbling courthouse games and other masquerades of what had been the old society.

Harvey wasn’t sure sometimes if it was them humouring him and his quirks of human culture, or him humouring them. Such was the strange life in the caves beneath the swamp. But it was a peaceful life, undisturbed.

Things got busier around when the odd little wood shack above them was repurposed into the beehive, thankfully even then, not by much. Swamp dwellers kept to themselves more often than not and the kind of business they dealt in was one better kept quiet.

Queen Roger wasn’t averse to sharing the space with them either, in fact the Queen Bee seemed fascinated by the fish folk more than anything. They’d struck up a quiet alliance over the years with neither wanting to give away each other’s secrets.

Queen was one of the less detestable humans to be sure.

Then Brad dropped in with their little entourage. Having someone new to play court with was novel. Harvey found something endearing in seeing the weathered and worn survivor in a sincere state of confusion during their trial.

Brad wasn’t quite a beast of the apocalypse, despite how he looked. He wasn’t like Harvey’s parents either, or anyone in those sealed off and sterile rooms all that time ago.

When all was said and done, his face gave way to something softer and fonder, gently amused. The creases becoming less harsh and drawn in. There were just glimpses of something underneath, genuine kindness.

Not even those who raised him showed Harvey that. When he reflected, the positivity they’d shown him, the pride and praise was related to his progress alone. In other spare moments, he’d seen them look at him with what could only be pity… weak, empty pity.

More towards the end, as things fell apart, he’d tried harder and harder to convince them he was human too. Because living humans were all he’d ever seen then aside from creatures preserved in vats, mutations and failures. He couldn’t let himself end up like that.

So he’d endured the endless studying, and being studied. Arduous and extensive and unrelenting, to test his capabilities to the fullest.

And then it was over, leaving him wondering what it was even worth. Those memories of that time were so distant and so other, all he’d taken with him was what he’d learned. Every useless detail.

All until they'd passed beneath the hill, where high above the trumpet called, that man brandishing it to the air.

Even in the glint and glare of the blazing Olathian sun, the profile of his face rang a vague familiarity from that dreamlike place. For the last words Harvey had ever heard in that place were his:

_ “Doctor Alibastor, we can’t afford to waste anymore time and resources studying the worthless waste that’s come of our experimentation. We’ll have it disposed of like the other garbage that’s been churned out.” _


End file.
